Liam Lawson says the two race weekends he had in Red Bull’s car before being demoted to their second team wasn’t enough time to get used to it.
Red Bull demoted Lawson to their second team, Racing Bulls, and have promoted Yuki Tsunoda in his place from this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.“Obviously I would have loved more time,” Lawson told Sky. His only two events at Red Bull came at venues where he had never previously raced. “I felt like [I needed] more time, especially going to places that I’d been before.”
Lawson, who made just 11 grand prix starts before moving to Red Bull, suffered some disruptions during his preparations for his first full F1 season. He covered fewer laps in testing than any driver bar Lance Stroll and was unable to participate in final practice for the Australian Grand Prix due to a power unit problem.
“It was a tough start,” he said. “We had a rocky testing, we had a rocky first weekend in Melbourne with practice and then obviously China was a sprint [weekend, with only one practice session].
“I think going to place that I’ve been before, with the way the car was quite tricky, I think that would’ve helped and I would have loved that opportunity. But obviously it’s not my decision so I’m here to make the most this one.”
He believes he could have got used to the car had he had more time in it. “The car is hard to drive, but we were going through a process of making that adjustment,” he said. “For me it’s honestly time.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“With the way that the weekends went: In Formula 1, in a pre-season test you’re driving all day and you have loads of time to adjust and things like that. I think honestly a lack of time in the car is really the biggest thing for me.
“It made it hard to adjust, it felt like each session we were going out we were adjusting or getting used to something, it was a little bit unknown. So for me it’s not so much a driving style or something like that, it’s just literally adjusting and for me I just didn’t have the time to do that.”
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories - and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
2025 Japanese Grand Prix
- McLaren has to accept upsetting either of its drivers sometimes – Stella
- Verstappen ‘can test our car, I look forward to seeing his disappointment’ – Norris
- Verstappen insists McLaren domination claim was ‘no joke’ after Piastri’s doubt
- Extra mandatory pit stop won’t create more passing at tracks like Suzuka – Sainz
- Mercedes took note of Verstappen’s out-lap tactics after stunning Suzuka pole position
BasCB (@bascb)
2nd April 2025, 15:17
Yeah, it seems by now even the Red Bull guys agree that is true Liam.
JackL
2nd April 2025, 16:10
Its sad that this treatment of drivers is so common in Red Bull. People need to call them out for it. This is people’s lives and careers that we’re talking about.
Last year, neither Perez nor Ricciardo got a proper sendoff because Red Bull wouldnt confirm what we all knew. Its remarkable how most of their drivers have done better outside of RB, than under Marko.
El Pollo Loco
2nd April 2025, 16:53
Red Bull has given more rookies shots than the rest of the grid combined and is responsible for more of the drivers on the grid than the rest of the teams combined. How about pointing that out? Lawson is still in F1 and can easily recover his reputation while Yuki is finally getting the chance he deserved. Boo hoo.
MichaelN
2nd April 2025, 19:21
Red Bull actually has fielded only one rookie, Liuzzi back in 2005. They’ve otherwise used their second team (privilege!) to do that. Of the current grid, 7 drivers have made their debut there, whereas 13 have made their debut at another team.
So since Red Bull doesn’t have to take chances on rookies (privilege!), it’s more fair to average the numbers, so 3,5 drivers.
That’s pretty similar to McLaren (Hamilton, Norris and Piastri) and Williams (Hülkenberg, Stroll and Russell). Sauber has two (Bortoleto and Leclerc). Others one: Mercedes (Antonelli), Ferrari (Bearman), Alpine (Doohan), defunct Manor (Ocon), defunct Minardi (Alonso). None of the current drivers has made their debut at Haas or Aston Martin. In fact, nobody has made their debut at Aston Martin in its current guise.
El Pollo Loco
3rd April 2025, 1:22
I said Red Bull. Not Red Bull Racing. Pretty sure you knew what I meant.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd April 2025, 5:04
El pollo loco, even so michaeln makes a good point, as in with red bull having the big advantage of having 2 teams, when talking about how many chances they give to rookies, it’s fair to average the 2 teams out, and if the result (as it looks like) is similar to the other teams, then I’m not impressed.
On 1 hand, it’s not realistic to expect a rookie to start at red bull (see how they’re doing even with some races of experience), on other hand, if you’re a top team like example mercedes you can’t afford to get a rookie driver that might or might not work out, while red bull still has a second team to do that, where there’s a lot less pressure than on the main team.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd April 2025, 5:06
Rprp brings up the same point below, so you see it’s not unreasonable to consider this “twice the teams, twice the drivers brought in”.
mmertens (@mmertens)
2nd April 2025, 19:26
I think it’s fair to say that Red Bull program works really well on road to F1 ladder until F2 and reserve F1 reserve driver roles. They provide young talents with a lot of support thru the ladder and the work is really well done. Where it’s clear that there’s blatant systemic management / decision errors is on how they choose the F1 drivers for main team. If we see the history of these harsh driver line up changes over the last years, knee jerk reactions on driver line up and how they pile on the pressure on how drivers are expected to perform, it’s counterproductive .Visibly the current mess they are in is result of poor management / decision making by Helmut and co, made it worse by their communication for everyone to see with 2 wrong decisions in 100 days. (Promoting Lawson vs Sunoda and then demoting Lawson with 2 races). If I was an aspiring kid on RedBull program, I would try to do the Carlos Sainz way, go thru the ladder until reaching Racing Bulls (or F2), and then trying to get myself out to another team with different mindset regarding drivers. If they don’t change the approach regarding Red Bull 2nd driver, they will need a 2023 car with huge margin to keep the hopes for constructors championship and hope that Max stays with them for the years to come. They clearly lack long term approach planning for next decade.
rprp
3rd April 2025, 3:08
Well they can afford to, as they have a full team dedicated to bringing in young talent (or trialling them to see if they could still cut it). Not saying it’s right or wrong, it’s just how it works. But with two teams, one dedicated to placing young talent, they don’t have twice the count of Merc, so I wouldn’t necessarily say their driver programme is any more successful. (You are factually correct though that they are responsible for most drivers on the grid today)
Current F1 grid has
7 Red Bull: Sainz, Albon, Verstappen, Tsunoda, Lawson, Gasly, Hadjar
4 Merc: Hamilton(ish), Antonelli, Russell (yes, Williams, but placed by Merc), Ocon
2 Ferrari: Leclerc, Bearman
2 Renault/Alpine talent: Doohan, Alonso
1 Williams talent: Colapinto (maybe you could include Stroll and Hulkenberg)
3 McLaren: Piastri, Norris, Bortoleto
MacLeod (@macleod)
3rd April 2025, 8:24
Maybe Red Bull expected you (Liam) to a bit higher then 19th and 20th in a car which could be lower then 15th and the reaction they got was disturbing enough to swap you right away.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
2nd April 2025, 15:39
Errrr – I’m pretty sure that 99.9% of anyone who follows F1 would agree with you there Liam.
Good luck this weekend.
I suspect you will have a much better time than Yuki, though I really want him to smash that Red Bull right up Max’s a…….
stefano (@alfa145)
2nd April 2025, 16:26
What’s Verstappen got to do with anything about this?
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
2nd April 2025, 16:31
Really? …. Honestly? …. You don’t think any of this has anything to do with Max?
Patrick (@paeschli)
2nd April 2025, 20:50
Is he the one designing the car? The one building it? Please enlighten us!
SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
3rd April 2025, 6:53
It is blind hatred.
MacLeod (@macleod)
3rd April 2025, 8:02
Wauw Max designed the whole car oh wait he doesn’t he drives what he gets and the car is so bad he is talking with the engineers to help them making the car beter and stable which it’s now.
MacLeod (@macleod)
3rd April 2025, 8:02
NOT stable …
El Pollo Loco
2nd April 2025, 16:57
If Seb had been Lewis and Max had been, say, George, Red Bull would be looked upon favorably instead of being characterized as this brutal, evil team. I’ve never liked Max or Red Bull yet I find these narratives tiresome. The only thing Red Bull is guilty of is incompetent management of their #2 seat and not signing anyone who might displease Max.
Doggy
2nd April 2025, 23:24
Just typical people hating just because…well they can… common sense and solid data/facts, would say nothing to do with Max. But hey! Let’s just leave in a toxic bubble because it makes us feel better about God know what…
Same applies to people hating on Hamilton during his first race in Australia btw
MacLeod (@macleod)
3rd April 2025, 8:03
+1 very good points!
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
2nd April 2025, 15:47
That’s what happens when you ask a rookie too much. There are many reasons why chosing Yuki over Liam last december made the most sense, experience being the main one. Red Bull chose to ignore all of them, under the idea that Liam had more potential to grow. Look where that took them all.
An Sionnach
2nd April 2025, 16:24
I suppose they made the wrong decision twice and it didn’t add up to the right one. Hopefully he’ll get another shot. By then, the Red Bull may no longer be a top car, though!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd April 2025, 5:10
More than no longer being a top car (which is indeed a possibility, with verstappen maybe leaving too), we first have to consider that no one ever made it back to red bull after leaving it or being fired.
Ricciardo seemed to no longer have what it takes in his last season, vettel was also pretty bad and marko said he wasn’t interested, and drivers who did well after doing badly at red bull, like albon or gasly were not on the radar.
It seems like an almost impossible scenario.
Jorge Jaime (@jorgejaime)
2nd April 2025, 17:07
Hope he ditches his arrogance and pick up some respect
SteveP
2nd April 2025, 18:19
I feel that he would have been best advised to keep quiet about the subject until he’s done a few races back in the VCARB, and Yuki a few in the RBR.
If Yuki drives the car well, and Lawson doesn’t do very well in the VCARB he will look stupid, especially with the macho posturing he did all the way to the RBR exit.
If Yuki fails as badly as Lawson did, then point at the car being awful to drive and any driver needing time to get used to it.
“I could have done as well/better if they gave me the time they have given him…”
I have no idea which way this is going to fall, although the car is a bit of a diva, but it does look like he’s burned a few PR bridges before he got near them.
Patrick (@paeschli)
2nd April 2025, 20:52
F1 fans lose their mind when a driver speaks his mind. For the first time in a long time we have a driver speaking completely unfiltered and people recoil in disgust.
SteveP
3rd April 2025, 20:27
Not at all what I was saying.
I was saying that his timing is off:
“I feel that he would have been best advised to keep quiet about the subject until he’s done a few races back in the VCARB, and Yuki a few in the RBR.”
Wait and choose a better moment.
Mog
2nd April 2025, 20:52
Maybe Lawson is just so certain Tsunoda won’t succeed, at least not initially. He did drive the red bull for two races after all.
MacLeod (@macleod)
3rd April 2025, 8:08
We all know (including Red Bull) that the car is fast but very hard to control but an driver should adapt and drive. I would never put Liam in the car as he doesn’t have experience enough but would go with Yuki.
NWPencrawler
2nd April 2025, 19:39
Yuki won’t have much time either. Guess we’ll see how this plays out. Probably one of the most highly anticipated Japanese GP in a while. Can’t wait.
El Pollo Loco
3rd April 2025, 1:24
Just the rest of the season according to Red Bull Racing themselves.
LS
3rd April 2025, 6:24
And Gasly won’t be replaced mid-season according to Red Bull Racing themselves
dutchtreat (@dutchtreat)
2nd April 2025, 21:12
Yuki this, Liam that. Marko bad, Horner bad. Pirelli bad, Michelin good.
Let it play out and stop speculating there are many more important things in this world, Donald very bad. Relax.
Ferdi
3rd April 2025, 7:17
Clicks equals money. People like to express negativity over positivity. This site feeds into that: With 10 F1 teams (soon 11), 50-60% of articles on this site are about RedBull, of which 95% of them are leaning (and therewith subtly leading) towards negativity. Perfect concept.
baasbas
3rd April 2025, 8:08
@dutchtreat
…and the Chinese farmer said: “Maybe”
Edvaldo
2nd April 2025, 23:19
Besides Williams and their untalented pay drivers, which team has been changing drivers as often as Red Bull?
I agree he should have never been given the drive, but two races is an insult. And it has been said his car didn’t feature some of the updates Max’s had, so another thing to make this even more unfair.
sim
2nd April 2025, 23:20
“Christian Horner says a big factor in the decision to move Liam Lawson to Racing Bulls after just two races was because his engineers had become “concerned” by his mental state” wow – not very ethical to discuss an employee mental’s state with the press but hey Horner and employee ethics.
M2X
3rd April 2025, 11:34
History has shown that great drivers don’t need time, they just perform.
Qualifying 18th, 20th and 20th in a top 10 car is the writing on the wall.
The mistake was giving him the seat in the first place.
dutchtreat (@dutchtreat)
3rd April 2025, 12:13
M2X you are right. Kimi #2 is a good example of that.